August 31, 2006

This probably isn’t the best forum to discuss what I’m about to discuss but I’m going to do it anyway.

You know how when you’re doing something you really shouldn’t be doing and you really shouldn’t tell anyone, you still confide in at least one person just so that it somehow makes whatever you’re doing seem real? Otherwise, if you can’t tell anyone, it’s almost like it never happened. And what fun is that?

Our enormous remodel project (after numerous delays because of fucking contractors and fucking permit issues) is finally happening. By enormous, I mean gigantic. When this fucking Herculean effort is completed, we will have more than doubled the square footage of our home by virtue of adding an entire fucking second story. We’re literally changing the look and feel of our entire neighborhood.

There’s not one single room in what used to be our home that will be untouched. It’s basically going all the way down to the fucking studs. It’s not so much a remodel as it as a new-home start. The cost? Fuck, hedge funds have been started with less money than what it’s going to take to finish this fucking nightmare.

The obvious downside to this Trumpian undertaking is that me, the wife and our four kids can’t fucking live there for the next five months. At least. Knowing how this shit really works, we probably won’t see the inside of our new home until the Memorial Day weekend. Of 2008.

We considered renting a house for the duration. There was talk of sending the wife and kids to live with the in-laws. I’d rent an apartment and fly back and forth every other weekend to spend time with my family. But that idea was nixed mainly because I suggested that we just install a Web cam at the in-law’s place where I could bitch and complain to the wife and kids online and avoid the fucking airport altogether.

It turns out that whatever it is that my wife does all day long while I’m busting my ass to put fucking bread on the table actually has some value. A while back, she struck up a friendship with another married mommy raising three boys of her own. Think they originally met through our church but I honestly don’t fucking remember.

Anyway, this couple would bring their kids to our home and vice versa for months and we all got along pretty well. When they heard about our shelter dilemma, they graciously offered to let us (yes, ALL of us) move into their home for however long this project was going to take.

My first reaction was: Fuck no! But after weighing all our options and receiving copious assurances (lies) that we wouldn’t be any imposition at all, I relented. Obviously, disaster loomed on the horizon. Trust me when I tell you all the dire predictions have come true. It’s lived up to the hype. And then some.

I can’t, in words, properly describe what takes place during the dinner hour. I thought it would be as simple as just throwing a bag of hot dogs into a microwave and dousing three dozen buns with ketchup. Same process for chicken strips. Not so much. This assembly-line approach to feeding half a dozen little kids does work but it’s the supervision during the feedings and the aftermath that we’ve yet to master.

When the evening meal concludes, the kitchen, dining room and much of the family room resemble the interior of any major modern art museum. Fucking shit everywhere. These kids aren’t stupid. They know they’ve got the numbers. It’s a fucking mob mentality. Every night is fucking Mardi Gras. Things happen. Bad things. And it’s impossible to know who is responsible and, therefore, impossible to fairly punish the offenders.

The only solution, enacted last night by yours truly, was to walk around the feeding zone and indiscriminately smack any head I could reach. Your kid. My kid. I didn’t give a shit. I was like Michael Douglas in “Falling Down.” Tonight, I’m considering administering the head whacks before the feeding begins. Cruel? Maybe. But I want them crying before the first fucking quarter ton of lettuce or oil barrel of milk hits that fucking table.

Playtime, defined as every fucking second these little bastards aren’t sleeping or eating, sounds like the front row of a fucking Metallica concert and looks like a prison-yard beat down. Injuries are common. Dry wall is pierced. Cups of milk and juice are overturned. Screaming is the preferred method of communication. Poops are found on legos and inside the pages of the booklets in those fucking LeapFrog learning things.

As if that weren’t enough, I’m pretty sure my wife’s friend is trying to seduce me.

She’s always doing stuff like talking to me or making eye contact while she’s talking to me. Totally obvious. She’ll walk around the house or do the fucking laundry. Sometimes I know she’ll go into the bathroom and take off all her clothes before she showers. Then she dries off with a towel. A towel I’ve probably seen in the laundry or in the hall closet. And she knows I know that she just showered and dried off.

You know what I mean?

It’s gotten so bad that I’m worried her husband and my wife are on to us. One morning, my wife came into the kitchen where her friend and I were having breakfast and she says “good morning.” All cheerful and perky. And I accidentally knocked the butter knife that was straddling my plate onto the table. I turned beet red. Just kept eating my toast and tried to play it off.

One night, oh God, one night her husband and I were watching the baseball game in the living room and she asked us if we wanted some beers. We both said we did. So she comes into the family room with the beers and gave me my beer first! And she said “here you go.” I just stared straight ahead at the TV, totally focusing on the Geiko auto insurance commercial.

Thing is, her husband is a really great guy. He’s a fucking typical middle-management, meeting-taker. But I still hang out with him. He’s let us move into their house during this fucking remodel. Won’t accept a penny no matter how much I insist. Yet, the whole time he’s sitting there drinking his beer, I’m thinking about how his wife gave me my beer first.

The sad thing is that I find myself anxious to leave work and return to my “new” home and my “new” wife. More than I’d ever care to admit. Even my “old” wife has mentioned that I seem to be getting home from work earlier than I did when we were living in the “old” house.

I’m just dying to see what her next slutty little move will be. But I’m nervous that we’re going to get busted. It’s a fucking dicey situation.

Is tonight going to be the night she looks at me while she’s laughing at some TV show? And how am I going to react? Should I keep laughing too or should I stop? If I stop laughing and everyone else is laughing, is that going to blow everything? I’m out of my fucking tree over this one.

I don’t know what to do but I do know that I’m excited by the uncertainty of it all. Secretly, I’m hoping there are major problems and delays and even cost overruns on the remodel so I’ll have more time to spend with my “new” wife.

August 30, 2006

Mark Twain had it right when he said the American jury system “puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury.”

Say what you want about defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges and defendants, the real problem with the American criminal justice machine is the dysfunctional jury system it so foolishly embraces.

Of all the problems afflicting the system—overworked and underpaid public defenders and mandatory minimum sentences to name just two—the biggest threat to justice is the way in which we select and seat jurors for civil and criminal trials.

Think about it.

Who are the fucking people who end up serving on juries? They’re the fucking idiots who either can’t get out of jury duty or, more dangerous, do everything they can to be seated because they don’t have anything better to do with their time. Or have some other fucking agenda that has nothing to do with justice.

I’m talking about the most serious cases. The highest-profile crimes. The ones that take months and months to adjudicate like the O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson trials.

The fucking people they find for these juries are the permanently unemployed. Or they’re old and retired. Or they’re college students or other shiftless fucks living at home with mommy and daddy. Once in a blue moon, they’re people who are employed at companies that will actually pay them their regular salary for the duration of the trial.

You say some people are just good citizens who can afford to take time off from work (and without pay) to do their civic duty. I say people smart enough not to HAVE to work surely have better things to do with their time than spend 16 weeks (with Fridays off) in a courtroom or sequestered in a fucking hotel room for the “privilege” of participating in the process.

And do you really want someone sitting on your jury who is doing it for “curiosity” or the “hell of it” or to write a fucking book? Worse, do you want 12 men and women, good and true, forced to listen to the facts of your case? Talk about a group that’s dying to do whatever is easiest rather than what’s right.

We’re talking about someone’s life here. Yet we leave this shit to amateurs?

Then everyone throws their hands in the air wondering why those with money and influence walk when they shouldn’t and poor people who (occasionally) are innocent spend years and years in prison.

Here’s the solution:

Anyone who serves on a jury should know something about the law. It’s common fucking sense. You don’t take butchers and bakers or even candle-stick makers and turn them into professional jurors. You use law students.

That’s right. Instead of wasting thousands of hours on these fucking Law Reviews at all these universities, take these aspiring second- and third-year law students and turn them into professional jurors.

Make it a requirement for graduation that every law student complete a six-month tour as a professional juror in their community. Pay them something substantial. I don’t know. Maybe a stipend of like $2,000 a month. If you want to be a doctor, you have to do a residency. I know it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it would provide invaluable experience to every student serious about practicing law sometime down the road.

What practicing attorney wouldn’t give his left nut (or left ovary) to log 100 or 200 hours of real experience inside that jury room and five times as much time watching arguments unfold right in front of them? Talk about inside baseball. There’s no way this experience wouldn’t make them better attorneys.

With some notable exceptions, most of the people who manage to get into law school are bright people. They have common sense. They understand legal theory, to some degree, and recognize not only what’s at stake but why it’s so important that jurors take their responsibility seriously. By virtue of being interested and invested in the law, they’d be more circumspect and analytical than any fucking random group of 12 assholes off the street.

Most of these law students are going to be young. A good number of them are going to be naïve. Most, if not all, are going to bring their fair share of biases and presumptions to the courtroom. So what? Every jury brings these same predispositions. At least these people aren’t complete fucking morons.

The voir dire process would be the same. Both sides could eliminate jurors in the same fashion they do now. The whole process would be more efficient. Judges and attorneys would have to pick up their game. Deliberations wouldn’t so much be a battle of personalities as a battle of attrition between 12 people who have a decent legal foundation from which to base their arguments and decisions.

It’s not a perfect solution. And there’s no guarantee that juries comprised of law students (paid or not) are going to be anymore enthused about their six-month “sentence” than juries made up of social misfits and incompetents.

But if my ass was on the line, I know which group I’d want in that jury box.

August 28, 2006

I’ve seen a lot of headlines on a lot of Web sites over the years, but nothing prepared me for this one:

“Raiders sign QB Jeff George”

Holy Fucking Shit.

I’ve never been a fan of the Raiders organization. Like a fish, it rots from the head down. Managing General Partner Al Davis, once formidable and respected, is now just an old man who has lost his way. An embarrassment. A fucking caricature.

Fans who have supported the vaunted Silver and Black for generations have turned their backs. Commitment to Excellence now sounds like a cruel taunt.

Those of you old enough (mid-40s) to remember when the Raiders were a proud and competitive franchise surely must be embarrassed by today’s signing.

Jeff George, perhaps, no, in fact, IS the living, breathing definition of a fucking loser, has been signed to play for the Raiders this season despite the fact that he hasn’t thrown a forward pass in competition in more than five years.

I can’t even dig deep enough inside myself to find the words that best articulate why this is both the saddest and most hilarious bit of news to hit the wire in the past decade or so.

Jesus Christ.

Jeff Fucking George.

He couldn’t be going to a better place.

An afternoon at a Raider game is worth burning if for no other reason than to completely debunk Creationism. The missing link(s) are on display all game long.

The best part about attending a Raider game is walking out to the parking lot after yet another loss and watching the faithful (so thoroughly fucked over by the team, the county, the refs, the league and the world) beat the living fuck out of each other with beer bottles, barbeque grills and parking cones.

A good half to three-quarters of all the people who paid between $51 and $71 each to “attend” spend the entirety of the game with their backs to the action, arms extended above their heads, screaming profanities and other unintelligible noises. The rest of the time, they’re either punching or kicking each other or somebody else who mistakenly thought they’d come to watch a professional football game.

August 26, 2006

Ever noticed how when two strangers are trapped in a confined space like an elevator or the waiting room at a place where they change your oil, both people go out of their way not to say anything or make eye contact?

Believe me. I’m not Mr. Friendly Chatty Guy. Frankly, I don’t even want to get into a conversation with most strangers. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Why are we so afraid to make eye contact and chat up complete strangers?

Sure, we’ll say hi and hey or give the obligatory head nod. But people just fucking don’t want to talk to people anymore. It’s a fucking sad state of affairs.

But some situations require interaction. And some people are better at it than others. You know it when you see/hear it. Some people just have a knack for disarming strangers.

In these circumstances, I only have one fail-safe, fallback conversation starter.

“Hi. So, you’re on death row and you’re fresh out of appeals. What’s your last meal?”

I know it’s not particularly original or exciting but it fucking works. Feel free to rip me off.

Think about it. You’ve been in jail for like 20 years. You’ve been eating nothing but flavorless prison food for years. You’re about to fucking die. The only good thing that will ever happen to you again is the 10 or 15 or maybe only 2 minutes that you spend eating this penultimate meal.

It’s not a decision that anyone, fucking psycho or not, will take lightly.

I think this ice-breaker is so effective because it cuts right through race, class, gender, religion, economic and social classes. Every single person I’ve ever met not only knows about this strange custom bestowed on the condemned, but has actually given it some thought.

The clubhouse leader, in my random sampling, is fucking pizza. By a mile.

Not lobster. Not steak. Not even the ever-popular burger.

Nope. It’s fucking pizza.

It makes perfect sense. You might go out for a fancy meal every so often. Indulge in some salmon or pasta or Chinese or whatever, but when push comes to shove people fucking love pizza.

Drive around your community. From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans, there’s a pizza joint every six blocks. Maybe less. They’re everywhere. Think about how many pies are delivered everyday in this country.

There’s no question pizza is the definitive American meal. It’s entirely unhealthy. While there are many variations, most pizzas boil down to bread, meat and cheese. Tell that to the Atkins crowd.

But you can get a pizza with just about anything on it. There are fancy-boy places where they put prawns and fucking capers and ahi tuna on them. But pepperoni is still King. Take that to the fucking bank.

Off the subject: What else is fucking pepperoni good for? I’ve sliced it up and thrown it in with a spaghetti sauce but that’s about it. Pepperoni only exists in this universe to top pizzas.

Another great thing about pizza is you can get half of it one way and half of it another. I fucking double-dare you to name another meal where you can, for the same price, appease both the carnivore and the vegetarian with the same order. I haven’t tried it but I bet you could talk some places into doing quarter-pie orders. If you can’t yet, you will soon.

Pizza is portable. It’s flexible. You can have it anytime of the day. Who doesn’t love cold pizza in the morning? Order pizza for the office, you’re a fucking hero. Kids love it. The old love it. It’s a real fucking revelation.

For the record, I wouldn’t pick pizza for my last meal. I’d go traditional. I’d want a complete Thanksgiving dinner. A moist, tender turkey. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. The rolls and the stuffing and the yams with fucking marshmallows and the fucking olives and the cranberries and the pies.

More than the taste, the food would remind me of good times. Of people I loved. Of times when the world magically seems to stop and we’re all reminded of why we bother living in the first place.

August 24, 2006

Nothing is really pissing me off today so I thought I’d post some random thoughts about women that take you readers inside the dark, twisted mind of someone who is fucking bitter and angry all the time.

Why don’t they make bras like they did back in the 50s and 60s?

I don’t know what the deal is but all the women on TV shows from that era had torpedo tits. And they all wore really tight sweaters. It was a good look. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for this but I’m bitter and angry that this look has fallen out of fashion. Bring back the torpedo tits.

At what point did panty lines become such a taboo?

Did I miss the memo? You still see obvious panty lines from time to time but they’re pretty rare, especially on women under 40. The other thing is these thongs and g-strings that are supposed to solve the problem don’t really help. It just changes the panty line in question. I can see you’re wearing a thong. That’s right. The secret is out. Is this better than everyone knowing you’re wearing a pair of standard briefs? I must be missing something simple here.

Did you really think the Mom cut was flattering?

It’s a serious problem. For about 95 percent of women, the short do is a horrible call. By short, I mean along the lines of a bob. No good. To really pull off that short of a cut, you better not be fat and you better have really proportional facial features. Otherwise, it’s brutal. I know it’s easier to maintain and all that but come on? Hair is critical.

Why are you self-conscious about farting/pooping?

I mean, I know you do. Sometimes I hear it. More often I smell it. But why is this such a no-no for so many women? It’s weird. Don’t you know that we find your farts endearing. Snap a few off here and there. Better yet, announce their arrival and make pooping faces when you do it. It’s charming. And oddly arousing.

What would happen if a man wasn’t around to do your wet work?

I’m talking about spiders and bugs. I have never met a woman willing to kill a spider or a roach or any other insect that invades the home. I know there are lots of women who live alone. How do you cope? Do you just ignore them and leave the room? For fuck’s sake, grab some toilet paper, climb up on the chair and fucking kill it. I picture single women around the world struggling to push open the doors to their apartments because there are bugs and spiders six inches deep throughout the fucking place. Or is that you don’t want men to see that you’re more than capable of snuffing out an innocent bug life?

Why don’t you ladies like each other?

Take any 8 men in the world who have never met before and confine them in the same room for an afternoon and they’ll be fine. Maybe not best of friends but they can handle it. Do the same with 8 women and you’ll have fucking anarchy. You’ll team up two or three to an alliance and ignore everyone else in the room. Won’t take more than 15 minutes and at least two of the eight women will say something derogatory about one of the other women for no other reason than to bond with their little group.

My theory is that men try to find things they have in common with strange men but women immediately start trying to find things that are different or that they don’t like about other women. Her clothes. Her makeup. Married. Single. Kids. No kids. Hot. Not so hot. There’s a little caste system at work in the female world. The way she talks. Blah, blah, blah. I’ve seen it a million times.

Men will talk about sports, women, cars, work, whatever. Sure, we don’t particularly like all the guys in the room but we’re not ready to write anyone off in the first five minutes. Usually. You little bitches think you know all you need to know about a strange women in about three minutes. You talk shit about each other all the time. It’s a fucking sport for you.

Your biggest concern ahead of a big social event like a wedding or a work conference is what you’re going to wear. Not to look good for men. To look good for women. It’s a fucking competition. For guys, the contest is to see who can dress the fucking worst/most comfortable and get away with it.

You wonder why no woman has ever been elected President (even though you have men outnumbered) or why women rarely become CEO of the company. It’s pretty obvious. You’re too fucking jealous and catty to rally behind any one woman. It’s sad. You broads need to get your shit together.

Why do pretend that you’re not as dirty as we are?

Funny thing happens about a month or two into any relationship. The fucking truth comes out. You’re into that? And that? You mean that wasn’t the first time you did that? Knock off the games. You want to bring a fucking car battery into the bedroom, fine. Just don’t make me play the game where you pretend that I’m corrupting you. Now I have to lug this heavy, corrosive fucking thing all the way back out to the garage, naked and at half mast in the dark. We’ll just get you your own and store it under the bed next to your rabbit and your fucking stash of Penthouse letters.

You’ve been up to no good since you were about what, 11 or 12? You might be holding us back as a couple. I bet you have some tricks I’d like to learn. But you won’t share them unless I stumble upon them. And after we’re done, why is it always my fault?

August 23, 2006

Something like 92,000 Americans are currently on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) waiting list. Talk about sweating something out.

According to the UNOS Web site, 77 people luck out and receive a donated organ every day. Sadly, another 18 people die each day because a suitable organ never becomes available for transplant. And a good 3,700 new people join the waiting list every month.

They say about half of all the people on these donor waiting lists will die before a needed organ becomes available.

Expect these numbers to continue to rise as people live longer thanks to improved medical science and pharmaceuticals.

The thing about needing an organ is that it could happen to anyone. One day you’re sailing along in perfect health and then something goes awry and you need a fucking kidney or some bone marrow.

It seems to me we need a better system for this organ donation scam. I know the waiting lists are supposed to be based on need or length of time on the list, but you can bet that more than a few lucky (rich or otherwise connected) people have been bumped up the list over the years to get a life-saving organ they probably weren’t entitled to. That’s life, I guess, but surely there’s got to be a better way to manage these valuable resources.

Depending upon where you live, you can sign up to be an organ donor when you get or renew your driver’s license. This is something I’ve never done and I’m in the clear majority on this one.

Only about 30 percent of Americans are registered organ donors. Something like 20,000 transplantable organs are buried or cremated every year. For whatever reason, people just aren’t comfortable with the idea of having their parts (or their loved ones’ parts) mined from their corpses and distributed much like used auto parts. It’s not rational but it’s a fact.

Further undermining the organ-donation process is the fact that you don’t have to be a registered organ donor to be eligible to receive a donated organ if you were ever in need of one. Doesn’t seem right but it’s true and it provides an admittedly shallow “excuse” for those who don’t want to register as organ donors. After all, why should I register and “give away” my organs to someone in need who didn’t even bother to register to donate his or her organs when they die?

Here’s my solution:

First, you don’t get on the waiting list until you register to donate your own organs. Period. You might have a faulty heart, but there’s nothing wrong with your kidneys or pancreas or corneas. It has to be mandatory. You have to pay to play.

And if you’ve ever received a donated organ, you’re a registered donor for life. No exceptions.

Second, we need to create a better system for rewarding those who have or will donate their organs once they die. Doing the right thing should be enough but it’s not and we have to stop kidding ourselves.

I suggest that donated organs be treated just like any other asset because that’s what they are. Just like stocks or cash or homes or insurance policies, a person’s organs are property and are extremely valuable. The problem is that most surviving family members, the folks who stand to inherit the deceased’s property, almost never need an organ. At least not at that very moment.

We’re not quite at the point where a husband can put his dead wife’s lungs or heart up for auction on eBay (yet) so we have to find some way to adequately compensate the relatives of organ donors. The organs have to be iced up and shipped out and transplanted in quick order, but that shouldn’t be the end of the story for the surviving relatives of the deceased.

I hate to be so blunt and tactless about this, but we need more of a quid pro quo approach to this organ donating business. I say that the immediate surviving family of a deceased organ donor should receive special consideration and credit for, indirectly, donating the organ assets of their loved one to those on the waiting list.

If your mother dies of a heart attack and is a registered donor, they can go right ahead and start harvesting the lungs, cornea, bone marrow, kidneys, liver, etc. and ship them off to the lucky person(s) next on the waiting list for each respective organ. And the immediate family (meaning surviving spouse and children only) are given credit for each organ they’ve indirectly donated to those in need. In this example, the family gets a notation in the organ registry for having “provided” all these organs except, obviously, for the heart.

Let’s say that three years down the road, the husband starts suffering from liver failure. Say he hit the bottle real hard throughout most of his life but really cranked it up a couple notches after his wife croaked from the heart attack. This guy needs a liver transplant. Like yesterday. Because his wife was a registered donor and already kicked down a liver at the time of her death, this guy gets what we’ll call “priority” consideration for the next available and matching liver that comes down the pipe.

The same priority consideration would be extended to the mother’s children as well.

Yes, I know you can’t bump one guy from the bottom of the list to the top of the list just because his wife died and donated all her organs. It’s going to require a little work and common sense to devise some equitable formula that rewards people for registering to donate their organs. Start out simple: If you need an organ and an immediate family member hasn’t died and donated his or her organs, you’re definitely going to the bottom of the list.

Yes, I realize that one donor could potentially have 8 or 12 or even 15 immediate family members eligible for the priority consideration. Eventually, you could reach a point where there will be more people with priority status than not. But so what? Chances are none of the surviving family members will ever have to cash in the chip their dead relative(s) left behind.

Think about how this type of system would increase the number of people who register to donate their organs. If you knew that by giving away your organs you would be at least increasing the odds that your children or your spouse will get a second chance at life, why wouldn’t you become a registered donor?

There’s no way to sugarcoat this. People always want to know what’s in it for them? Otherwise, according to current statistics, a good 7 in 10 of us will just blow it off and let our organs go to waste.

You never really think about donating your organs until you or someone you know needs one. It’s fucking human nature. No one wants to think or talk about death so it’s real easy to avoid any serious discussion about donating your organs. They’re your fucking organs. You should be able to do whatever you want with them.

If we can come up with an incentive-based system that rewards people in tangible ways for donating their organs, people will fucking do it.

August 21, 2006

Now it’s time to turn down the lights and light a candle. Instead of the usual tirade, I’m going to take a few minutes to dispense some free and valuable advice. Call it community service.

Beware of the broken woman.

This goes for men and women alike.

The broken woman never appears broken at first glance. Not even at the second glance.

She’ll appear to be normal in every measurable way. Smart, funny, maybe even charming.

She’ll sneak up on you or your man, insinuating herself into his life in a most innocuous way at first. A casual conversation here. An email there. Nothing unusual or suspicious. She’ll just sort of show up at social events or work events or anywhere else the man happens to be. Soon, more overt efforts will be required. They might even require travel.

She’s a buddy, a pal, a person with whom the man, maybe even your man, shares similar interests and views. They’ll find humor in the same stupid things. They will bond.

Another unmistakable characteristic of the broken woman is that she will not be interested in striking up a friendship with you unless you are involved in a serious relationship. Single men need not apply. Girlfriends, especially the kind you live with are good, but married is better still.

But it won’t seem like that’s the deal because the broken woman is always attached herself. That’s another telltale sign. She’ll always have her own man. The advanced broken woman is always married.

Initially, it will be a good cover. She with her man, he with his woman. Part of the thrill for the broken woman is bringing along her man while socializing with the other couple. Just two couples getting together for a night of dinner and drinks. What could be the harm in that?

Eventually, the broken woman will find herself spending quite a bit of time with the married or otherwise attached man, playing that age-old game of cat-and-mouse, pushing the envelope. When exactly does harmless flirting become something much more sinister?

The broken woman knows.

Before long, human nature being what it is, the man stumbles into her trap. She’s a veteran of this game. Knows how to play it from every angle. You might not be sure where it’s all headed, but the broken woman knows.

The next thing you know, you’re getting a divorce or breaking up with your girlfriend. Years and years of effort, good times and bad, are washed away in a matter of months, generating substantial turmoil for everyone involved. The details vary but the end result is the same. The relationship is over and you’re moving on, starting anew with the broken woman.

For the broken woman, extracting herself from her current marriage or relationship is mere child’s play. Sure, there’s some emotional upheaval, but by this point the broken woman no longer has much need for her man. He’s served his purpose. More often than not, he too was once the new man. These cycles are hard to break.

And so it goes. The new relationship takes flight. No longer confined by confidentiality or caution, the new man and the broken woman begin their magical journey. Good times indeed. Sure, the novelty eventually starts to wear off. Regrets surface. Unforeseen issues rear their heads. But on the whole, this new relationship seems to be working out just fine.

It might be two months, two years or even five years down the road but eventually, just as the sun rises and sets, the broken woman will grow bored and eager to repeat the cycle. She couldn’t tell you why and you wouldn’t want to know even if she could tell you. But it’s a fucking certainty. She will be on the prowl again.

It will all start over again. Suddenly, she’ll want to take you out for drinks with some guy from work and his wife. Or something like that. You’ll not even notice it at first because you’ve forgotten how it all began for you in the first place.

Still infuriated by the lackluster writing and acting that’s destroyed Entourage this season, I’m now turning my rage and disappointment on a random collection of things and people that, for whatever reason, most people “love” but I find ridiculously overrated.

If someone or something that you “love” appears on this list, it’s high time you do a little soul-searching to figure out how and why things got so fucking distorted along the way. And, yes, there will be some sacred cows skewered in the process. I don’t care. The truth must be told.

AMERICAN IDOL. This is a no-brainer. Watched every episode in the first season and it was apparent by about Week 3 that Kelly Clarkson would win by a landslide. Every season and winner since has been letdown. Enough already. No one who hasn’t been discovered already is going to come along with the same talent and personality as Clarkson. That ship has sailed. Stop it with the never-ending “outtakes” and lousy “guest artist” contributions. Don’t get me started on the Paula Abdul factor. Long story short, AI’s time has come and gone even if millions of Americans haven’t figured it out yet.

WINE. Everyone with a tongue thinks wine is SO wonderful and interesting. It’s just SO sophisticated. It’s not. I just laugh at and then want to choke out all these wannabe wine snobs who think people give a shit about their preference of grapes or vintners. The bullshit wine-scoring system (it’s a 93 so it MUST be great!!!) further exemplifies why this wine obsession is just a big fucking joke. Fucking sheep. These days everyone fashions themselves an oenophile and it’s just plain annoying. Enjoy your wine. Just don’t talk about it. I don’t give a shit. Truth is, 99 percent of these grape groupies, when blindfolded, can’t distinguish between “great” wine and merely “good” or even “shit” wine no matter how many weekends they’ve logged visiting wineries.

FANTASY SPORTS. Used to be fun back when your league was comprised entirely of hardcore fans who really loved the sport and knew what the fuck they were doing. Now, it’s amateur hour all the time. Women are playing. Fucking guys who act like women are playing.

Need I say more?

Anyone with a browser can rip-off strategies and information needed to compete, watering down the entire experience for everyone. It’s become so popular and pervasive, it’s no longer cool. It’s like when your great hole-in-the-wall restaurant somehow gets a fucking glowing review and suddenly become the most popular place in town. You never want to go back there again. Same thing with fantasy sports. If any asshole can participate on an even playing field regardless of their depth of knowledge or length of interest, why do I want to participate?

POKER. Almost identical problem as fantasy sports. I was playing Texas Hold ‘Em for real money long before the Internet and way, way before they were televising every fucking tournament in the world. Now everyone thinks they know something about no-limit hold ‘em. And these “pros” talk about all the strategy they’ve learned over the years, about the “tells” they can identify. But all that doesn’t mean a whole fucking lot when your nut flush gets busted on the river by running Jacks to fill up some fish’s full house. Watch any televised tournament and you’ll see the truth for yourself: Luck separates winners from losers far more than skill or experience.

SUSHI. Look, instead of spending that $80 on a dozen or so plates of raw fish, you could have gone to the grocery store and picked up a bottle of soy sauce and some wasabi (actually horseradish, mustard and green food coloring) and, after dipping your fingers into the mixture time and time again, licked them clean for about $6. Same experience.

BED & BREAKFASTS. Oh, they’re so romantic. Middle of nowhere. No TV. No Internet. Just you and a bunch of middle-aged fucks sitting around the lobby by the fire sipping sherry or hot chocolate, re-reading yesterday’s newspaper and pretending to be relaxed. Maybe a game of Scrabble? Fuck that.

JESSICA SIMPSON. You’re done. Your little sister is now much hotter than you and everyone hates you for breaking up with Nick. Now where are you? No one really liked your music or your forgettable TV and movie appearances anyway. We just liked making fun of how stupid you were in your little realty TV show. Now, you mean nothing to us. We’re also more than a little suspicious of your relationship with your father, you know what I mean?

NETFLIX. Seemed like a good idea in theory but the fact that you can just leave these fucking things all over the house for weeks and months on end keeps me from actually ever watching any of them. No urgency to watch or return. At least in the old-school rental days, you HAD to leave the house, you HAD to watch the movie and you were basically forced to look at other titles on a regular basis. Now, that queue of future titles waiting to be shipped from Netflix does nothing more than remind me of what I haven’t done and what little I have to look forward to once I do watch the ones hidden throughout my house.

LIVE PERFORMANCES. Ever noticed how a band doesn’t sound nearly as good live as it does on a CD or MP3? Without all the mixing equipment, the music almost always sounds worse than it does in your car or on your iPod. It’s just not as good. Sometimes dramatically worse. Throw in the fucking ridiculous ticket prices, the fact that you have to interact with other asshole human beings and the inconvenience of actually driving to and from and parking at the venue and it’s shocking that people show up for live concerts anymore.

WILL FERRELL. I liked your cameo in “Wedding Crashers.” You had a good line or two in “Old School.” Everything else you’ve done has been shit. Ron Burgundy, Anchorman. Complete shit. So bad, in fact, I won’t even waste my time watching “Talladega Nights” when it comes out on DVD or cable. I heard it’s stupid, too. When are people going to wake up and realize this guy isn’t very funny?

CHIPOTLE. I hear and read so many people raving about Chipotle. Yes, yes, the Chipotle “mystique.” Maybe it’s because I’m on the West Coast and have literally dozens of outstanding Mexican eateries to choose from, but I will never understand the fascination with Chipotle. It’s a fucking tortilla with grilled meat, cheese, beans, sauce, guacamole and sour cream. Dude, it was fucking McDonald’s who brought this bastion of culinary “excellence” to your world. Do you understand? It’s good, not great. Definitely not worth standing in line for five minutes, much less 25 minutes. Street vendors in roach coaches beat that shit all day long.

You’ve jumped the fucking shark. Back in the first season, I was the only person I knew who actually watched and enjoyed you. By Season Two, the whole world was enthralled with you.

Now, I’m fucking done with you. Nothing interesting ever fucking happens. Not nearly enough hot chicks are featured. The storylines are tiresome and meandering. There hasn’t been one good episode all year. Maybe the Vegas episode was mildly entertaining, but 1-for-11 will only get you a bus ticket back to the minor leagues.

Everything is plodding, predictable and boring, definitely not something I’d be interested in.

Go fuck yourself, Entourage. You and fucking Lucky Louie and that stupid fucking midgets in the circus series. You’re all bullshit.

I fight tooth and nail to survive between Sundays and you deliver this shit? For such a big movie star, young Vince has only had two ho-hum hook-ups in the entire fucking season. The horse-faced waitress at the silent auction and some engaged star-fucker who didn’t even show her cans. Don’t waste my fucking time. Do you hear me?

Maybe I’m alone on this, but I fucking couldn’t care less about Turtle’s aspiring music-management career. The way that storyline concluded, it’s pretty obvious the writers felt the same way. Ditto Drama’s flailing acting career. Ditto Ari’s new agency and Eric’s inability to close the deal in the threesome episode.

It’s all a whole lot of noise signifying nothing.

Creator Doug Ellin and Executive Producer Marky Mark should be ashamed of themselves for taking what promised to be another fantastic, long-running HBO franchise and fucking it up beyond recognition.

Did you really waste the bulk of TWO valuable fucking episodes introducing the ex-con buddy Dominick and then, at the apex of his character arch, send him packing after he stole a fucking Shrek doll? How fucking lame is that?

And what about the wasted potential of the Eric-Sloane-Tori troika? Things were looking up when they did the threesome (with rules) and got even more interesting when Eric fessed up that he was all worked up over Tori. Then what? Then Tori leaves, Sloane disappears from subsequent episodes and Eric does what? Nothing.

That sums up the whole fucking season. Lots of this-and-that but nothing that makes you give a shit about any of the characters.

Where’s Shauna, the irascible publicist who stole scene after scene in seasons past? I know Debi Mazer was obviously pregnant in the one or two of the episodes she appeared in early this season. But couldn’t she have been worked into the mix at some point, by phone or whatever? Like maybe after the brawl in Vegas or during the tumult with the studio guy who fucked Vince out of doing the Pablo Escobar flick.

Watching Ari fuck with Lloyd was funny the first 16 or 17 times. Now, it’s just fucking noise. And why is Mrs. Clark Griswold on this show, anyway?

Where are the big-name celebrity walk-ons this season? And, no, Seth Green doesn’t count. That fucking guy was on way too much. He’s not even believable as a celebrity walk-on because nobody even considers him a real celebrity.

August 17, 2006

And so begins yet another media gangbang over a little girl who has been dead for almost 10 years.

On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see the detectives and various law-enforcement types took the initiative to actually follow-up on the infamous and cold-as-ice JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation.

Yet I can’t help but feel like we’re all being played—yet again—by the attention-starved civil servants working in a disgraced district attorney’s office and by the flavor-of-the-month tabloid press masquerading as legitimate journalists.

Either way, I still contend that regardless of whatever evidence is unearthed or whatever confession is proffered, the people most responsible for that little girl’s death are her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey.

And here’s why.

Any parent(s) sick enough to enter their child into multiple beauty pageants at 4 or 5 or 6 years of age should be shot on sight. No trial. Just put down like fucking animals.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has watched—over and over and over again—the video clips of little JonBenet singing and posing in those fucking disgusting pageants over the years. The girl looked a like a whore and, by design, actually looked much, much older than she really was.

There are so many degrees of wrong here I don’t really even know where to start. Does it not occur to any of these sick fucking parents that these pageants are just magnets for fucking pedophiles? I mean who in their right fucking mind would willingly attend one of these toddler pageants?

I’ll tell you who. Fucking pedophiles and parents so fucking loathsome and pathetic that they’re willing to whore up their daughters in order to live vicariously through their child’s meaningless victory in this most disturbing type of “beauty” pageant.

I highly recommend everyone watch the documentary “Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen” to get an idea of just what the fuck we’re talking about here. Some call it harmless entertainment. I call it fucking child abuse. Pure and simple. If I were a 5-year-old girl, I’d rather be beaten with an extension cord daily than forced to prepare for and perform in one of these fucking little-kid pageants.

I realize that I’m probably preaching to the choir on this issue. With the notable exception of much of the backasswards South, most of the sane world won’t have anything to do with these sick fucking pre-teen beauty pageants. Might be high time for Civil War II if for no other reason than to emancipate all these poor little girls forced into bustiers and thong panties only a year after they’re fully potty trained.

Anyway, there was Patsy Ramsey, a former beauty queen herself, pushing and prodding and guiding little JonBenet into this disgusting underworld of baby pageants, no doubt proudly beaming with every tiara, trophy and teddy bear awarded. She couldn’t fucking restrain herself. Little JonBenet was “hot” and polished and won something like six “major” titles before her tragic death.

Who knows how the recent arrest of this sick fuck John Mark Karr will play out. The latest bit I’ve read and heard was that he was “in love” with JonBenet and that her death (but not her alleged sexual assault) was “an accident.”

How the fuck does some piece of shit like this ever even get to the point where he could fantasize about “falling in love” with a random, 5-year-old girl? Could it have been the beauty pageants? You watch. It will all come out that this fucking guy knew and obsessed over JonBenet after following her nascent pageant career. I might be wrong, but I doubt it.

While I’m sure her parents were devastated by her death—and further destroyed by endless speculation that one or both of them actually killed her—they brought much of this misery on themselves by subjecting her to what I would call criminal sexualization at such a young age.

This fucking guy, if his story turns out to be true, should be slowly tortured and killed for his fucking demonic act.

But there’s no fucking way Mom and Dad should ever get a pass. No fucking way.